Message from Shawn Iguchi

<Only in Japan = Slurping noodle culture>

A little diversion from the series.

If you are a long time reader of my blog, you would start sobering up from lies about East Asia.

If you were ignorant, you would be thinking that Japan and Korea were resembling or similar because you were cheated into believing so by Korean liars. But Korea was a part of China (meaning Koreans were Chinese) until recently so Chinese and Koreans are the ones similar or resembling to each other.

It is not just their cultures but also their DNA that is similar.

What China has, Korea has. What Chinese people think, Korean people think the same way.

For example, when eating foods, Japanese people pick up a small dish or bowl and bring it to underneath their mouths whereas Chinese and Koreans don’t hold anything in their hands except chopsticks (or spoon) when eating but they just bring their heads close to their meals on the table.

Why only Japan is different from Chinese and Korean cultures? It is because Japan has never had any governance or direct cultural influences from China in history.

Everything from scratch, Japan is totally different from Chinese and Korean cultures.

<Tatami mat culture = Original Japanese culture>

The reason why Japanese people hold a small dish or bowl in their hands when eating is because Japan has “Tatami (mat)” culture.

Tatami is made from special kind of straws so if you spill colored liquid such as Miso soup and Soy sauce, it gets tainted leaving stains behind. That’s why Japanese parents teach their children to hold a bowl or use small dish to bring foods underneath their mouths not to spill foods.

Nowadays, majority of Japanese people have a room without Tatami mats where they eat foods, but still spilling foods on a table is considered to be a bad manner so Japanese people still bring a bowl or small dish underneath their mouths.

China and Korea have never had Tatami mat culture but they just have a wood floor so even if they spill foods on the floor, they just wipe it off.

That’s how Japanese culture became totally different from Chinese and Korean cultures.

Tatami mat culture is also the reason Japanese martial-arts, such as Ju-Do, Ju-Jitsu, Aiki-Do, were developed. None of these Japanese martial-arts originated from Chinese (needless to say Korean) cultures because of Tatami.

<Slurping noodle culture>

This time, I will show you another Japanese original culture. That is “Slurping noodle culture”

You will get surprised if you ever travel to Japan and visit a local Ramen restaurant.

Japanese people are slurping noodles!  You will go, “Wow!”

In most of countries, making noise when eating foods is considered a bad manner.

Japan too is the same. However, when eating noodles, it becomes exception.

If you are Westerner, you will wonder why. However, Westerners aren’t the only people who have such a question but also Chinese and Korean people do.

You will go, “Again!?” Right, again Chinese and Korean cultures are 100% different from Japanese. Chinese and Koreans don’t slurp noodles and none of them can understand why Japanese people slurp noodles.

(See? That’s why asking Chinese and Koreans to explain Japanese culture is all wrong because they are as ignorant as Westerners. So it is wrong to generalize into “Asian” while combining Japanese, Chinese and Koreans. You can generalize Chinese and Korean as one group but can never include Japanese in the group of Chinese and Koreans because Japanese culture is fundamentally different from Chinese and Korean cultures)

<Why slurping??>

 When anyone other than Japanese people tries to eat noodles like the way Japanese people do, people realize they can’t.

Here is the reason.

1.    Making noise isn’t the purpose of slurping noodles but creating air flow to vacuum noodles.

You think Japanese people are trying to make a noise because making noise when eating noodles is considered to be a good manner in Japan but actually none of Japanese people has such an idea.

Noise is the creation as the result from achieving the purpose of air flow to vacuum noodles. None of Japanese tries to make a noise but is trying to make air flow.

<Principle behind it>

A good example is, when you use a vacuum cleaner, if you press a nozzle onto a floor, it stops air flow so it doesn’t suck anything. But when you put nozzle parallel to the floor, it starts making noise and sucks trashes by the air flow.

It is air flow pushing the trashes into the nozzle. Likewise, when sucking noodles, it is air flow pushing the noodles into your mouth. So Japanese people are trying to suck air when trying to deliver noodles into their mouths.

<What’s happening inside their mouths?>

 When sucking noodles, the inside mouth fills with soup. The soup becomes like mist mixed with air flow. And it tastes way better than just tasting the soup from a spoon.

<Benefits of sucking noodles>

1.    To make the soup taste better.
(When bubbles in soup hit your taste buds in slurping, they make your tongue more sensitive so that you can sense more vividly the taste of soup. And bubbled soup can exude stronger smell) 

2.    To cool down the hot noodles with air.

3.  To bring soup with noodles in your mouth in a split second without using a spoon.

 (meaning a very efficient way to eat both noodles and soup at the same time)

<Tips; How to do it>

1.    Quick and short sequential sucking motions create the air flow.

(The air flow is what can bring noodles in your mouth)

2.    Don't clamp on noodles with your mouth when sucking.

(Make a tiny gap around noodles when sucking so that you can suck air and the air flow can push noodles into your mouth)

Now you can do like Japanese people! You will find out the taste is different!

You will realize, “I see. This is what Japanese people are enjoying! I've got it now!”

(Slurping Ramen in New York) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olnu9eK4m2M

(How to slurp Ramen)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu6SC8vABgk

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